


It doesn't work like that

by r_andomstuff



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Aaravos being a little shit, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Mentioned Elarion, Mentioned Rayla, Mentioned Tinker, Mentioned Viren, Pining, The chapters are short I know but I'm trying to update every day
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2019-11-01 12:58:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17867699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r_andomstuff/pseuds/r_andomstuff
Summary: Aaravos decides that he can no longer use Viren to get out of the mirror because of obvious reasons, although the dark mage actually has something he may need.





	1. Chapter 1

 The coin landed heavily on the floor of the study with a loud tinkle, breaking the tense silence of the room with its cheerful noise. Aaravos heaved a sound of relief as soon as the small object materialized itself in front of the mirror, but this time on his side, knowing that from there on it would be child’s play to release the precious content that was stored inside and make use of it.

  The other elf was lying on one side, with his back turned to the mirror that operated as a portal between the two dimensions. He looked mostly alright, apart from the binding that was still strangling his left arm, but he could work with that, get the elf as healthy as possible and escape from the timeless hole where the Dragon King had confined him. Ironically, no one really cared about using dark magic as long as it worked on imprisoning him, so he was determined to do the same now, but in reverse. The life of this elf would save many others.

 Lowering himself to take the coin between his fingers, he carefully twisted it in his hand to take a look at the symbols engraved on its side and with an appreciative hum he turned it again to inspect the Moonshadow elf kept inside. 

 Closing his hand, he rose to his feet and placed the coin on the small table in front of the mirror that, ever since the human had been locked up somewhere in his castle, had been empty and… Ordinary. He almost missed him, the first company he’d had in centuries. 

 He couldn’t wait to come out of the damned thing.

 As the evening approached, he started preparing himself to perform the ritual that would grant him the most powerful ingredient for the spell that would finally set him free.


	2. Chapter 2

 Runaan didn’t realize something was off until it was too late, when his back hit the hard floor of a room flooded by the sunlight and a pained groan escaped from his lips.

 He barely had the strength to roll on his side to block out as much sunlight as possible, since in the other place there was no light at all, and his eyes had grown used to the lonely darkness that surrounded him for hours and hours on end. 

 A deep, warm voice broke the silence.

 “I didn’t realize before that one of your horns was broken.”

 His instincts told him to get up and face the danger, or at the very least to protect himself, but the only thing he could manage was raising an arm to cover half of his face and whimper pathetically at the possible threat. His other arm felt numb, his pain had been replaced a few days ago by an uncomfortable tingle, that was slowly giving way to… Nothing. His arm was going to fall off and he wouldn’t even notice.

 The deep voice spoke again, this time a monotonous chanting reached his ears before the study suddenly went dark and he could attempt to open his eyes and look through his fingers. Blinking a few times, he managed to keep his eyes open and recognize the faint light of some candles placed in the corners of the room.

 Before he could pay attention to anything else, though, a soft touch reached his shoulder and gently pried his hand away from his face.

  The other being hummed silently but this time the darkness and the sound allowed Runaan to locate where they were exactly, which was right next to him on the floor. Turning his head tiredly and raising his eyes from the ground, a dark shape obstructed his view, and focusing his eyes on it he could recognize the familiar profile of an elf.

 The outline of pointed ears, half hidden behind long, loose hair, relaxed him almost as fast as the sight of a pair of branched horns instilled a sense of fear so deep inside his chest that he felt like he had lost all control over his body, his limbs unwilling to move no matter how loud his brain was screaming at him to get away from there.

 A soft chuckle resonated in the room, which sent both a chilling shiver down his spine and an unwelcome flutter low in his stomach.

 “I’m glad to see you are still fairly responsive. I was expecting much worse considering how long the mage told me you’ve spent inside that portal.” he stated, and suddenly Runaan found himself on his back while the mage thoroughly inspected the binding on his arm with a hand, and with the other he firmly pressed his shoulder on the ground.

 Runaan didn’t see the point in that, considering how drained he felt. A sense of nausea caused by the stress of the past weeks, coupled with the inevitable tinge of fear inspired by the other elf, shook his whole body. Without even being aware of what was happening, he instinctively turned his head on one side and threw up the last contents of his stomach, which was not much.

 A pair of hands raised his head from the ground, enough for him not to be gagging on his own vomit, and foolishly, in that moment, he felt grateful. 

 “There, there. You’re going to be fine here, for a while.”

 Runaan wasn’t sure if those word were actually spoken by the Archmage or if they were the result of too much exhaustion, either way, he blacked out.


	3. Chapter 3

 He forced the remaining water out of the study with a wind spell, and finally the room was clean again.

 Cleaning vomit left him feeling slightly outraged, but even this would be paid off eventually.

 Glancing at the small red couch next to the mirror, he stared for a few moments at the sleeping elf that was lying on top of it, his bare chest rising and sinking with each breath he took.

 Sharing the mirror with another living being after centuries of loneliness felt strange but at the same time almost comforting.

 With a sigh he took a seat behind his desk and prepared himself to wait for a few hours until the spell he had cast on the elf would wear itself out.

 Aaravos could understand how draining the continuous stress of partial sensory deprivation was, so the only logical thing to do had been putting him to sleep and let his body adjust to the relatively new stimuli.

 Crossing both arms on the desk, he moved his eyes from the half naked sleeping form to the empty fireplace, and then back to the elf. It only took him two signs with a finger and a few whispered words for a flame to emerge from the logs and in a matter of minutes envelope the place in its warm embrace.

 He planned to reap as much dark magic as possible from the other elf, and of the finest quality too, so as long as he kept him healthy both physically and emotionally there would be no problems in succeeding.

 But first, he had to find a way to remove the binding on the other’s left arm as it was slowly but constantly tightening itself and disrupting his blood flow, and eventually leading to a lost limb he if it didn't get stopped in time.

  _This thing with assassins really hasn't changed_ , he clicked his tongue as that thought crossed his mind, but brought the book on the corner of his desk closer to himself, opened it and started reading.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note: from here on you're going to see Aaravos' POV less often since I'm focusing on Runaan's side of the story.

 Runaan blinked a few times as he slowly regained consciousness, his mouth felt stale and it tasted even worse, the light in the room was soft and didn't hurt his eyes as… It had earlier. When he had thrown up on the floor and collapsed into… All of it.

 He unconsciously brought a hand to his face and was slightly surprised to find only clean and soft skin under his fingers.

 Turning his attention to his surroundings, the first thing he noticed was the tall, light ceiling, and for a moment he wished he could reach out and touch it. Instead, he tried turning his head on one side and inspect the rest of the space, but a groan erupted from his lips at the sudden wave of nausea that hit him.

 He felt too weak to attempt any other movement, but now he could finally see the rest of the room. The bookshelves, running all the way from the floor to the ceiling, covered an entire wall if not for the fireplace stuck in the middle of the two main shelves, a desk was in front of him, only a few steps from where he was lying on.

 But the desk wasn’t what caught his attention, it was a pair of curious oddly colored eyes that were staring right back at him.

 Feeling scared was only natural in that moment, he knew that no matter his skills as an assassin, he was completely at the mage's mercy. There was hardly anyone anymore who could wish to prevail over the Archmage, now that the Dragon King was dead.

 “I think it is time we properly introduced ourselves.” began the Startouch elf, an almost amused glint in his eyes had taken over his curiosity, and Runaan could swear it was because he was enjoying the fear on his face. “As I think you already noticed, you are no longer imprisoned in the coin the human had locked you in. Instead, you're inside the mirror of Aaravos. But I don't think you needed this information to guess who I was, Moonshadow.”

 The voice that spoke was rich, soothing, in a way he had never expected the voice of a dark mage would be, poisoned with evil and malicious intent. Warmth started spreading through his chest, and he immediately felt ashamed.

 “What-” his voice was strangely unfamiliar to his own ears as he spoke, scratchy, deep in its own way, although completely different from the mage's. “Why am I here?”

 At the question, the mage lowered both hands to the desk and smirked as he held his gaze. “To help me escape of course.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT (kinda): the time at the beginning of some chapters is relative to the mirror, a month there is more or less a day in the real world

_Two months later_

  
It was morning, or at least it seemed to be as the sun was shining, bright and warm. Some birds were chirping in the distance, outside of the open door of the cabin, but Runaan was sure that if he ever went out of his way to actually look for them, he wouldn’t find any.

The Archmage had explained him, a few days before, that the mirror they were locked in was like a pocket in the portal that connected the Arcanum to the world of the living beings, they were stuck exactly in the middle of it, with no way out. Where exactly the door to the portal was, he didn't know. The Dragon King had provided a flawless illusion of the forests of Xadia, but he couldn’t allow any sentient being to be confined alongside a dangerous, traitorous and powerful mage. There were no animals there, the plants felt real to the touch, but didn’t actually even exist.

“Inside the mirror”, he had told him, “you don't need to drink, to eat or to sleep to be alive. You just exist. And as long as the portal remains unscathed, we will too.”

Still, there was little he could do right then, so he sat at the wooden table, facing the door, and let himself lazily enjoy the morning as he started picking some moonberries from the basket in front of him.

Thoughts of Rayla started crossing his mind, she loved moonberry juice. He remembered the first times she had brought it with her during her training sessions, a small bottle half hidden underneath her belt, probably way too little to actually be useful, but she always wanted to have some with her. He remembered that at first he had used to scold her, he told her that only what would be useful should have been brought on a mission, anything else would have probably gotten someone killed, so she had started trying to be sneaky about it and always found a new spot to hide it.

After a while Runaan had given up on the subject, and the smug smile Rayla had showed on the first day she hadn't heard him complain about the moonberry juice was enough to still being a smile on his face.

He wondered where she was now, if she was still alive. The last time he had seen her, she was trying to buy the human princes enough time to escape. He silently hoped they made it. If the egg was alright and those human kids actually wanted to help, they would go back to Xadia and where Rayla would be safe.

He was such a poor excuse for… A mentor. That's what he was, although his mind liked to head in directions it really shouldn't, considering that Rayla still _had_ her parents, somewhere.

What he wouldn't do to see her again, to know she was safe at the very least.

A figure covered the light coming from the doorframe and he was suddenly brought back to the present as the mage quietly cleared his voice, as if trying not to startle him.

“I see you've woken up.” he stated, his voice deep as it always was, this time with a playful hint to it. He wasn’t particularly fond of the way his whole chest warmed up when hearing the mage speak, or the way his insides seemed to twist… Pleasantly.

He nodded, raising his eyes to meet the other's. “Where were you?”

Aaravos raised the book he was holding in his hands. As if he really had to pretend he needed both hands to hold it, Runaan thought. He had probably been in his study, it seemed like everytime he was unconscious the other elf would disappear to do more research on the portal.

The Archmage entered the cabin and took a seat at the table opposites to him, dropping the book on the hard surface with a loud thud.

“What were you thinking about, Moonshadow?”

Runaan shot him an annoyed glance He had tried to break the mage out of the habit of calling him like that a few weeks before, but nothing had worked, mostly because the other elf seemed to genuinely enjoy it.

And really, that wouldn't have bothered him by itself, it was the amused, mocking tone that he frequently used when calling him that, with that shameless, playful smirk…

“Why should I tell you?”

“You want me to guess, then?” Aaravos raised an eyebrow but turned his attention to the book in his hands, opened it and started looking for something specific by the looks of it, going through the pages rapidly and checking the titles of each chapter.

Runaan decided to ignore him.

The silence went on for a few minutes, and he kept eating moonberries while throwing a glance or two at the book on the table, until a soft “There you are.” left the Startouch elf's lips.

The Archmage hurriedly lifted his eyes from the book, took a small leaf, probably coming from the basket of moonberries, squeezed it in his hands and started a monotonous chanting that only lasted a few seconds, during which his eyes turned black. The result was an underlined word in the middle of the page. Runaan felt sick.

“I can't believe you.” he stood up abruptly, the chair screeching in the most unpleasant way as it scraped against the floor.

He knew that what he just saw wasn't real, the book wasn't real, the leaf wasn't real in the first place, so there was no way that the spell sucked the life force out of anything, but still, the utter _arrogance_ and _disrespect_ -

He left the room without looking back.


	6. Chapter 6

_ “Stay still now, it may sting for a moment.”  _

_ Runaan clenched his fist on the smooth surface of the desk while the mage applied an ointment all around the binding on his left arm. Today, after more than a week in the mirror, was finally the day he'd be freed from it, and if he was lucky enough his arm would still work as well as it had always had. _

_ Aaravos had placed a few objects in front of him and was using each of them methodically, first a small metal pin, that he placed between the binding and the skin, tearing it involuntarily -Runaan tried to ignore the warm droplet of blood as it travelled all the way down his arm-, then he took a small, pointy stone in his hand, the color curiously familiar. The assassin raised his free hand to the broken horn on his head and found the break point strangely smooth.  _

_ His eyes went to find the other elf, who wasn't really paying attention to him, as he was positioning a jar of glass and tiny, colorful pebbles in front of them, but the start of a smirk was certainly showing on his lips as though he had noticed the whole thing. They both knew he'd noticed. He didn't say a word about it.  
_

_ And neither did Runaan. _

_ Back to the present, the mage gripped the dagger he had dipped in the same ointment he had used on Runaan and made an intricate rune with his free hand. Runaan recognized it instantly as a rune of moon magic.  _

_ “Ready now.” uttered the mage, and for once the assassin let himself be relieved by the low and soothing voice without feeling any guilt. The moment he closed his eyes a wave of sharp, intense pain, overcame his senses for a few moments. _

_ His eyes, even though they were still closed, could only see white, he couldn't feel his body anymore and didn't notice the vertical, deep laceration on his left arm, or the blood that started spilling out of the wound, or even the binding that fell to the floor without making any sound. _

_ He thought he had lost consciousness for a moment, and maybe he had, because when he could finally open his eyes again the Archmage was tightening the bandages around his arm with a satisfied smirk, checking for other injuries with the corner of his eyes. When he had finally finished, he took a step back and crossed his arms to his chest without averting his gaze. _

_ Runaan felt like a bug under the watchful eye of a child.  _

_ “You always faint like… A damsel in distress when you come to the study. Are you alright, Moonshadow?” he offered, there were no signs of mockery in his tone, maybe even genuine concern, but Runaan felt that nickname rubbed him the wrong way.  
_

_ Either way, it was him who spoke next.  _

_ “Runaan. It's… Runaan.” _

_ He immediately regretted giving his name when the mage opened his mouth again. “Runaan. I like Runaan, but I think I prefer Moonshadow for now.”  _

_ His voice was so soft yet rich, and hearing his name like that did strange things to his chest, the warmth of the tone went straight to his insides and tenderly twisted them in a way that left him feeling powerless. He was  so  not doing this. _

_ Ignoring the Startouch elf, even though he was pretty sure he must have noticed the light flush on his cheeks, he lowered his gaze to the floor to see the broken binding. _

_ According to his knowledge, no other assassin had escaped a sacred oath without paying the price. Looking at his bandaged arm, he felt as much relief as he felt shame. _

 

Runaan remembers clearly that day. A lot of memories had come back during these few days.

As much as he hated to admit it, Runaan was in fact sulking. He'd spent two, maybe three days locked in his room, he didn't feel like eating, but then again, he _didn't have to_ , here. He'd found a pair of knives hidden in the drawer of his desk, and had been spending hours throwing them at random things that caught his attention. A stain on a wall, a crack on the door, a shape on the wooden closet that reminded him of fancy glass.  


Sulking in itself wasn't the problem, in fact, if he didn't think about it, he could almost enjoy the moments by himself. But when he thought back about the mage, his blood started boiling all over again. Three days, and Aaravos hadn't deigned himself to even attempt some form of apology. The mage could have a dead body in his house and not even notice. Three days and- Yeah, Runaan hated to be ignored. And he shouldn't expect someone like the other elf to show worry or even to apologize for his actions. 

When he'd escaped to his room, he'd been feeling outraged, disgusted and disrespected, but now those feelings had mellowed out but... He couldn't bring himselft to open the door and face the other. At first because he wouldn't know what to do after the scene in the morning, but then a day had passed, and he'd started thinking it'd be awkward, but then the second day had come by and he'd been still locked in his room.

Throwing the knife in his hand with a little too much force, he sat up in the bed and decided to finally face his problems. His problem. His tall, kinda asshole and also pretty rude problem.

“Runaan?”  


Aaravos' voice was muffled by the door, but it caught Runaan's attention in an instant. His tone was almost soft, and he'd used his name, not that "Moonshadow" thing he liked to pull, as if he wanted to propose a truce of some sort. A part of Runaan silently enjoyed the fact that he hadn't had to be the one to make the first move and wanted to roll in his victory, the other part sighed and came to terms with the fact that, even though he hadn't been the one to make the first step, he had to be the one to make the whole thing work. Because no matter if he wanted or not, he was still trapped inside the same mirror as the asshole on the other side of the door.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it took way more than expected. I guess. but yeah I'm back for now

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this, I hope you enjoyed it, let me know in the comments! Also, here's my tumblr if you'd like to stay updated @r-andomstuff


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